barack obama. >> i don't think there's anything that shows more empathy and care about the people of this country than that kind of rhetoric. >> i will repeal obama care and replace it with real health care reform. 100% of the kids in our state have health insurance. my state was a leading indicator of what liberals have been trying to do across the country. >> 100% of the kids in our state have health insurance. i was a severely conservative republican governor. i don't think there's anything that shows more empathy and care about the people of this country. i'm not familiar with precisely with what exactly i said but i stand by what i said whatever it was. ♪ and it is on. yes, in person voting is under way in the first battleground state of iowa where lines were snaking out the door in many polling places today with voters

eager to make their choice for who should occupy the white house for the next four years. indeed, voters in 30 states are now casting ballots either by absentee or in person, including the battlegrounds of new hampshire, north carolina, wisconsin, and virginia. while they say virginia is for lovers, today it was for fighters with the candidates going head-to-head in a midday moment of predebate sparring. >> his is the path of he calls it forward. i call it forewarned. all right? it is the same policyings he's put in place over the last four years, and they have not worked. >> i travel around a lot in virginia and across this country. i don't meet a lot of victims. i see hard working virginians. i see single moms like my mom putting in overtime to raise their kids right, and i see a whole bunch of veterans who are serving this country with bravery and distinction. >> for now, the president is

dominating the old dominion which he turned blue in 2008. polls in the past two weeks showing the president leading romney anywhere from five to eight points. but the president is taking nothing for granted, out today with a devastating new ad, and all in mitt romney's own words. >> i'm barack obama and i approve this message. >> there are 47% of the people who will vote for the president no matter what, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they're victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe they're entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you name it. and they will vote for this president no matter what. and so my job is not to worry about those people. i'll never convince them they should take personal responsibility. >> that absolutely brutal punch in the gut will be airing in ohio, virginia, florida, colorado, nevada, new hampshire, and iowa, where, by the way, early voting starts today. trying to minimize the impact of

his own callous comments, romney has his own new ad out talking straight to the camera. >> too many americans are struggling to find work in today's economy. too many of those who are working are living paycheck to paycheck. more americans are living in poverty than when president obama took office, and 15 million more are on food stamps. my plan will create 12 million new jobs over the next four years. >> i'm sorry, that was actually a little poetic license by jimmy kimmel live. but now mr. romney really does care. just listen as he explained his compassionate side to nbc's ron mott last night. >> don't forget, i got everybody in my state insured, 100 b% of e kids in our state has health insurance. i don't think there's anything that shows more empathy and care about the people of this country than that kind of record. >> wow, what a great argument for defending the president a's affordable care act.

romney went straight up onto the podium and told us what he really thinks of helping to cover the uninsured. >> obama care is really exhibit number one of the president's political philosophy, and that is that government knows better that be people how to run their lives. >> mitt romney, it's 4:00, just 40 days to election. do you know where your playbook is? let's get right to our handle. with us from washington, msnbc political analyst karen finney, dana mill bank, a political columnist for "the washington post," and mike, a white house correspondent for "time" magazine. karen, mr. romney proudly offered his own health care reform as evidence that he cares about people. 50 minutes later he says he'll repeal the president's health care reform. two of our producers have been hospitalized for whiplash having been forced to watch which way he's gone. thankfully they have health care. is even mr. romney himself now

tired of the severely conservative mask that he himself has been forced to wear? >> indeed, i think he is. as we talked about earlier this week, just a year or two or three ago, he had exactly the opposite position and was criticizing the idea that people would, you know, go to emergency rooms and that -- talking very differently about health care. the problem with this is it plays to exactly his fundamental flaw as a candidate, which is people don't trust him. you know, i have talked to people, even conservatives, a friend of mine's conservative mother had the best quote of all. she said i don't know if my issue is going to be the next thing that gets thrown under the bus. so when he whiplashes like this and makes it seem more like he's just going to say whatever it is he thinks he needs to say in front of the given audience, and, again, that plays into what is already a very deep-seated lack of trust that people have for him. >> right. michael, is mr. romney proud or ashamed of his signature

achievement in massachusetts? i would expect most politicians in the civilized world would regard medical care for children as being a major success story. >> yeah. he's actually been pretty consistent in defending what he did in massachusetts, even as he attacks obama care. the issue is less that he's changing his position. it's just that he's slicing this issue very finely. he objects to obama care on a number of very narrow grounds, even though on the stump he sounds like he's objecting to it broadly. he doesn't think the federal government should be doing it, he thinks it's okay if the state government does it, he doesn't think taxes should be raised and he's against the medicare advantage cuts. this is consistent for him since the beginning of the campaign. the problem is his rhetoric sounds like he objects to obama care on a much broader -- >> but, michael, the central issue is the individual mandate. >> that's right. >> and he's having it both ways on that, isn't he? >> well, sure. he's saying i like the

individual mandate on the state level and i don't like it on the federal level. >> right. >> don't forget, this underlying philosophy that earlier this week he said we have care for the uninsured, they can go to the emergency rooms. a few years ago he said we can't have freeloaders going to the emergency room. there is, michael, i think some slicing and dicing he's trying to do. don't forget, two days ago he admits that the president actually has not raised taxes on the middle class. then yesterday he says to people attacking the president, and he says, middle class people, i'm going do all these things, but don't expect a big tax break. the guy has got to stick to one story. >> good luck with that, karen. dana, i know you were at mr. romney's event at the american legion today because you tweeted a brilliant picture of a rolls-royce outside with a romney bumper sticker. we know -- there's the picture. we know wounded veterans and combat troops are part of the free loading 47%. so why is romney even worrying about them? that's not his job, is it?

>> in fairness it wasn't just the one rolls that said my rolls on the virginia license plates. there were several bmws, mercedes, volvo. i noticed the odd cadillac and a jaguar as well. you know what's going on here is romney is sort of in permanent reaction mode. he was put on the defensive over the 47% remark, so he's got to go out and illustrate all these new examples of empathy and compassion, even if that contradicts what he said last week. he's gotten in trouble because he didn't mention veterans during his acceptance speech at the convention. okay. well, now they're going to throw on a veterans event and give a speech to the veterans about, you know, isn't it terrible that 23 million people looking for work and, in fact, he's given it to a rather well-heeled crowd in the second wealthiest county in the nation. >> so, dana, does that kind of reactivity give you any confidence that such a mind

could be in a position such as commander in chief of the nation. >> well, he laid out a case today about when he is commander in chief, he is going to spend an extra trillion dollars on dfers and yet he's also going to cut taxes and yet also going to reduce the debt. so i believe that if he can do that, then it will be worth us watching. >> you know -- >> go ahead, karen. >> you mention these ads -- that the president is running the ads in the key swing states. those are the same states that saw those ads about people who lost their job when bain came to town. where was the compassion for the people who lost everything, their health care, their pensions, their jobs. the one guy who says we were building our own coffin, right? today we learned that, you know, romney was talking about harvesting these companies. i mean, again, i think he has a

fundamental flaw as a candidate. when you hear this lack of compassion, 47%, again, it plays into a central narrative and other things we have heard about him. >> okay. we've got a little bit of that tape that karen obliquely referred to then. let's take a listen. >> bain capital is an investment partnership which was formed to invest in startup companies and ongoing companies then to take an active hand in managing them and hopefully five to eight years later to harvest them at a significant profit. >> now, that was taken from mother jones' magazine. we don't know how the tape was edited. it was clearly some kind of internal bain capital business. your reaction to that tape, michael? this man saying in his own words that his business wasn't about creating jobs. we know it never was. it was about investing, piling on debt, and then harvesting value out of the companies. >> i think what it does is show the challenge of moving from the business world to politics.

it's something a lot of business people have tried in the past, very few have succeeded at. there's nothing controversial on wall street or in the business world of what was just said there. that's how private equity works. everyone will tell you that's how private equity works. your job in that world is to create a yield for your investors. but in a political space, you can't use that same kind of rhetoric, and this is just a danger, and i wouldn't be surprised actually if a lot more of these sorts of tapes show up that have been saved by the various opposition research groups for the last few weeks of this campaign. >> you know, michael, here is the thing, again, i think no democrat or republican would disagree i think with what you said, and this is again -- this problem that romney keeps having. he tried to say that his time at bain was about job creation. he said 100,000 jobs, and then it was 10,000 jobs. again, he himself tried to say something that we know wasn't true and, again, this contradicts the original story that he had that bain was about job creation that nobody -- >> karen, you're giving me

whiplash. i have to read the romney campaign, they've issued a response to that very tape, and they say in addition to starting new businesses, mitt romney helped build bain capital by turning around broken companies, creating and saving thousands of jobs. the problem today is that president obama hasn't been able to turn around our economy in the same way. there you have it. and he refers once again to job creation. dana mill bank, michael, and karen, we're out of time but thank you all. neck, the polls knows, and they could be getting a whole lot worse by the hour for team romney. stay with us. >> he's out of touch. he's out of touch in part because he never had the experience of working in the private sector and seeing what it takes to start a small business, how a business decides to grow, when they decide to shrink, when they decide to send jobs overseas. he doesn't understand that. >> i want to see us export more jobs -- export more products,

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it's hard to feel normal, when you can't do the normal things. to help, sleep train is collecting donations for the extra activities that, for most kids, are a normal part of growing up. not everyone can be a foster parent... but anyone can help a foster child. mitt romney is of one mind about what the polls say about his flailing candidacy. >> i know something about polls, and i know you can ask questions and get any answer you want. we well, i'm very pleased with some polls, less so with other polls. at this early stage, polls go up, polls go down. >> what i meant to say is of one mind that is at war with itself

almost daily. pick almost any poll and the result is the same. in national polls the president is ahead. swing state polls, the president is ahead. a fox news poll, yes, the president is ahead even there. but don't tell willard that, and don't tell fox news either. >> all right. let's take ohio and florida first. do you believe the polling today? >> are the swing states really swinging toward the president or could there possibly be some skewing going on by the media, the left-based mainstream media? >> i believe if the election were held today, romney would win by four or five points. >> joining us now in atlanta is dr. james peterson, who is a professor at lehigh university and a contributor to the gri o.com. and joy reid who is professor peterson's boss, the managing editor. welcome to both of you. joy, our current daily tracking polls have mitt romney not believing in polls now.

that could change several times. what do you think mitt believes about swing states, and bear in mind that by the end of this segment his position on polls could have changed. >> exactly. you know what? i think the best story of the week really besides the sam jackson making an awesome ad about voting is this unskewed polls. have you heard about this, this website where became people on the right have been allowed to leave the planet -- >> like the bubble. >> they have entered the bubble and sealed it. if you reweight the polls where there are many more republicans than democrats and you live on a different planet, mitt romney is winning, he's way ahead, he has no gas. it's beautiful. it's a wonderful reality. i think mitt has decided to enter into that unreality because it's much happier there. >> dr. peterson, you don't really need to read the polls to know what's happening, do you? because rick santorum and virginia governor bob mcdonald

are going to iowa, and chris christie and scott walker are in new hampshire, but they're not there to campaign for mitt romney, are they? >> no, they're not. they're there preparing for 2016, which is probably the republican party's best bet at this point. but this is really interesting. i think that the folk on the right who are scared about this are actually right, that pollsters are actually interacting with people who are more progressive, more centrist, and less identifying with what we think of now as the republican party. that's just a state of reality. the republican party is shrinking, so by definition, that means that pollsters are going to encounter folk who don't necessarily agree with the radical ways the party is constructed. we've been chuckling all day about this sam jackson ad, but the ad reflects the fact that people are waking up to the reality that mitt romney simply isn't a really credible or very, very competent politician. and all these gaffes and all these mistakes continue to reinscribe that fact. >> to both of you, we have an interesting end note because it's not just mitt romney who is

ill at ease with the polls. cue paul ryan moments ago. here he is. >> are you troubled by the wisconsin polls? and they're just polls and you always remind me of that. for a while it looked like you could take that state. just a snapshot of the moment but trailing further in that state. >> i don't actually believe the validity of that poll. i won't get into all the methodologies of it. >> which would he believe in? >> one that has him ahead. that's the one he would believe in. the reality is there's a serious thing about polling in that it does matter what your sample is and it matters the sample size and it also matters the weighting, whether you have how many more democrats than republicans. but underlying the problem for mitt romney is that republican voter identification is dropping, so the polls do have to reflect a weighting that says that there are fewer republicans than there are democrats and there are more independents. it's because there's less identification with the republican party in the country. so if the polls are trending

away from mitt romney, it's two things. number one, his poor performance, but also the fact that the republican brand is actually -- >> despite the fact that they're controlling for the decline as you put it. >> and it's controlled for. these polls all weight themselves according to where people say that they are, whether you're a democrat, republican, or independent and then they ask the question. there's not some inherent bias. >> dr. peterson, we, the media, have been blamed repeatedly. now the polls are being blamed. who else is to be blamed? >> eventually they will blame the voters for not agreeing with them. at the end of the day, this reflects the fact that our country is no longer moving to the right in some ways. there's some ways in which the radical right has established a platform that a lot of americans simply can't identify with. >> dr. james peterson and joy reid, thank you both. stay with us, much more ahead. >> obama up by ten points in ohio, nine points in florida, and 12 points in pennsylvania. i don't get it.

i don't get it, folks. how could romney be behind? he's so popular that his fans are releasing bootlegs of his speeches. final for the "your business" entrepreneur of the week. andrew rosenwaukl. today these tanks are shaped by hand with half century old tools. he says you don't throw out what works. you just build upon it. for more, watch "your business" this sunday morning at 7:30 on msnbc.

but that doesn't mean we should be penalized for it. that's why liberty mutual insurance policies come standard with accident forgiveness, if you qualify. learn more at libertymutual.com. according to a story in today's "new york times," a leaked internal document prepared by the israeli foreign ministry calls for another round of sanctions against iran suggesting the israelis may be willing to hold off taking military action. however, that was before israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu spoke to the u.n. general assembly a short time ago complete with a unique visual aid. nbc's mike viqueira joins us live from the white house. mike, mr. netanyahu today said he's in ongoing discussion with the u.s. over exactly when and where to draw this so-called red line. mike, has anyone at the white house confirmed or denied that to you? >> reporter: no, the last we

heard is no deadlines, no red lines. this has been an ongoing controversy. it bubbled up again a couple weeks ago and prime minister netanyahu once again called for a red line. as u.n. speeches go, there's nikita chew she have, yasser arafat, wile a lot of people have been deriding this prop that prime minister netanyahu is using today as sort of a cartoon initial roadrunner and coyote sort of cartoonish bomb he used as a prop, it's a deadly serious issue. there are some things the united states and prime minister netanyahu agree on, and this is iran is enriching uranium. they both agree that iran cannot be allowed to develop a nuclear bomb. what they disagree on is when and where that red line should be brawdrawn, the threshold givo iran saying you cannot cross this line. even prime minister netanyahu says it won't be until next

summer conceivably that iran would have that capability to enrich uranium into a weapons grade weapon, martin. >> nbc's mike viqueira at the white house. thank you. stay with us. the day's "top lines" are coming up. [ female announcer ] born from the naturally sweet monk fruit, something this delicious could only come from nature. now from the maker of splenda sweeteners, discover nectresse. the only 100% natural, no-calorie sweetener made from the goodness of fruit. the rich, sweet taste of sugar. nothing artificial. ♪ it's all that sweet ever needs to be. new nectresse. sweetness naturally. keys, keys, keys, keys, keys. ♪ well, he's not very handsome ♪ to look at [ sighs ] ♪ oh, he's shaggy ♪ and he eats like a hog

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accelerate receivables, manage payments, and help ensure access to credit. because we know how important cash flow is to reaching your goals. pnc bank. for the achiever in you. fox and the hound, fox and the chicken coop, fox and friends, here are today's "top lines." whatever happened to fair and balanced? >> teach a man how to fish, he can feed himself. romney, ryan. >> don't simply feed fish. >> just be who you are. others say get tougher, attack. >> it feels a lot like that fox saying, you know, we need more secure chicken koops. >> now the chicken has come to roost. >> this is for the guys. you wear crummy shoes, people notice. >> mitt romney is bassey trying to clear up some business conceptions.

>> more americans are living in poverty than when president obama took office. we should measure compassion by how many people are able to get off welfare. >> what about the people you said you couldn't convince to take greater personal responsibility. those are heavy words. >> leadsers who write off ha l the national. >> i got everybody in my state insured. >> he's the worst republican in the country. >> i don't think there's anything that shows more empathy and care. >> i want to see us export more jobs. i was channeling my opponent. >> do you smoke regularly pot? >> i did have a brownie once. made me sleepy. >> we're calling the upcoming debate the thrilla with vanilla. >> senator rob portman is playing barack obama in these mock debates we have. i don't like him very much jean more. >> governor romney has only one chance. >> president is an eloquent, gifted speaker. >> he must convince voters during the debates. can he do that?

>> he may be all knowing but he would still like to know a little more about mitt's tax returns. >> some people more in my camp, a lot of people more in his camp. >> shameless lying liar. >> the left-based mainstream med media. >> fairness is not an attitude. it's a skill. >> i don't think anybody in my business thinks they wouldn't like to be able to rewrite the story. >> let's get right to our esteemed political panel here this afternoon. krystal ball is my colleague and the co-host of msnbc's "the cycle" and lili ana is a hispanic strategist. krystal, according to some on the right it's people like you who are responsible for mitt romney's campaign problems. do you accept responsibility and would you pleads apology? >> fully and completely. mitt romney is running a terrific campaign. we've gotten it all wrong. that's why liberals like peggy noonan and big chrll crystal an news have been all wrong on this. >> thank you.

liliana, mr. romney has had some incredible assets at his disposable, fox news, ann coulter, "the wall street journal," karl rove, bill crystal, david koch but he's blaming everyone else. is it because he's not a very good candidate or is it because his policies stink? which of the two? >> well, i'm not going to apologize publicly like krystal. she's braver than me. but it's going back to the numbers that are exposing a new reality for the part which is today, which is a record number, 40% of all americans identify as independent. that's a record number. 31% democrat, and 27% republican. and that's a shrinking number when you look at the last five years. unless you adjust and react to a shrinking number and change the rhetoric and really, you know, reach out to the fastest growing segments of minorities and women

in this country that will take the president and the new president to the white house, then it's going to continue to shrink. so i think i'm going to blame the strategists that are ignoring the numbers. >> really, the strategists. krystal, i want you to take a look at romney's reaction today when a dretful, evil reporter dared to ask him some specifics on the programs he was going to cut. >> send money to pbs, not send money to the national endowment for humanities and arts. >> that doesn't add up to much, governor. >> i'm happy to keep going, julie, okay? we'll also take medicaid as well as housing and food stamps. we'll take the dollars that are going in those programs, return them to the states where they'll grow at the rate of inflation. >> right. well, he's included everything. he's going to slash the lot. >> and he gets so prickly when he's pressed on anything which will be a very bad thing for him going into the debates where you don't just get to spout our talking points without being

challenged. that's been an issue for him throughout the campaign. i remember early on in the primary he sat down and was asked very obvious straightforward questions -- >> by a friendly journalist. >> by a friendly journalist, and he got so prickly and looked so off-putting it was a disastrous interview. >> i want to turn to the issue of voter i.d., something republicans in pennsylvania were absolutely certain would deliver their state to mitt romney. take a listen. >> which is going to allow governor romney to win the state of pennsylvania, done. >> that, of course, was mike r turzai in pennsylvania. a pennsylvania judge may rule as early as today we believe on whether to block a voter i.d. law that could influence turnout. is this something that republicans have been kind of admitting to now? they've admitted in the form of mike turzai, is this a serious

problem for them if all these judgments are made against their plans to introduce voter i.d.? >> absolutely. while it's something noble when you just hear we want to prevent voter fraud, you look at the facts and figures, and there is such few cases of voter fraud. in the bush administration there was barely 86 of those cases identified over a five-year period. >> and in florida they suggested they had to purge 180,000 people from the voting rolls. i think they found 36 people who might be questionable. >> exactly. but this is where it becomes once again a branding and a pr issue. when you look at who are the penal that are affected, the elder, students, young people, minorities, which once again it is the fastest growing voter segment and they want to continue to ignore and say they don't want to ignore but pushing for these type of laws is indirectly or directly just bluntly saying, you know what? i want to push you aside. i don't care about your vote. let me try desperately to keep it with my base. >> it's shameful, and it is

desperate as well from a party who has run out of ideas for ways to appeal to people they'd rather just keep them from voting, and i think this is the last election when they can even come close to deluding themselves that this is a strategy that's going to be effective because the demographic shifts are here to stay. they're going to continue moving against the republican party, and if they don't find a way to put out a less zenphobic vibe, to have policies that appeal to a broad swath of america, they are going to be relegated to a regional permanent minority. >> but you have got to respect their effort, krystal. >> it's very creative. >> 33 separate states have tried. >> they have been very united in pushing this throughout states across the country, and the 2010 midterm elections where republicans really walked into a lot of state legislatures, combined with their partners at the american legislative exchange council who drafted this model legislation and pushed it nationwide, it has been sadly, sadly very

effective, and if the election was to tighten down to a narrow margin, these laws literally could make the difference. >> what is silly to this, just to will be rate, if you're putting so much effort into passing this law, why not focus on the electoral math on the states you need to win. minorities and women are the one that is will move the needle there. focus there and maybe you have a better shot. >> they're not listening and mr. romney is down 12 points in pennsylvania. krystal ball, lilia inna. next, he drove a wiener mee biel. now paul ryan may be driving team romney off a cliff. stay with us. >> and take a look at this. one of the six oscar maier winner mobiles crashed into a house yesterday. [ female announcer ] research suggests cell health plays a key role throughout our lives. one a day women's 50+ is a complete multivitamin

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that's quite a guy, isn't it? paul ryan, isn't that something? wait a second. romney, ryan, romney, ryan, romney, ryan. there we go. all right, that's great. thank you. >> it's possible to forgive poor mitt romney for feeling a little overshadowed by his running mate. after all, it's hard to compete with a guy who can catch fish with his bare hands while at the same time promoting a budget that would rob kids of their free lunch meals. how much of mitt romney's campaign belong to mitt romney? you can't help but wonder if mr. romney is just going along for the ride. joining us is tim dickinson of "rolling stone." his new article is in the current issue of the magazine and an excellent read it is, too. tim, i'd like to show you something before we delve into your article. just take a listen to this, tim. >> the only thing that limits you is your god given talent and your own effort. we need to have that dynamic

economy returned. do you that by growing the economy and getting people a hand up, not a hand out. teach a man how to fish, he can feed himself for a life. don't simply feed fish. >> right. sow doesn't believe in handouts. he won't even feed the fish. he wouldn't feed pigeons in central park for fear they'd become dependent. >> pigeons need the spur of their own poverty to collect all the refuse from the streets. >> that's a fair assessment. his proposals would kick nearly 2 million people off food stamps, leave 280,000 kids without free school meals, and cut off health care to another 300,000 children. tim, what would these folks do if, lord forbid, romney and ryan were elected in six weeks. what happens to this vast swath of americans? >> i mean, it's an honest question. are these people really just going to go hungry? are we going to have an america

where children are just not eating lunch at school? i mean, the math doesn't add up. romney talks about shuttling these safety net programs off to the states which sounds well and good. what he doesn't tell you is he's going to chop them by a third to a half. all of a sudden the states are going to have no money. either the states will have to raise taxes or they'll have to dramatically slice services to the very neediest at the same time the romney/ryan budget gives a trillion dollars in tax cuts to the very richest. it's insanity. it's ideology run amok and a dangerous prescription for the country. >> what's interesting about it, we see the secret videotape recording of mr. romney which he wants to run a mile away from where he says people feel entitled to things like food and a roof over their head and clothing, and then when you look at their actual budget proposals, they're not a million miles away from what he actually said in that secret recording. >> right. no, and a group of priests at

georgetown chided paul ryan for cloaking his budget in this sort of catholic doctrine saying that the teachings that he's promoting through his budget are a lot closer to ayn rand than our savior. it's incredibly cruel. i think if people really understood how many people this is going to affect and how negatively and how much suffering, real suffering this could cause, i don't think they'd buy it for a second, and i think they're just relying on a lot of snow and a lot of pr to confuse people about this stuff. >> i guess it's no surprise we're hearing in one poll that the president is actually surging with catholic believers 54 points to 39. one thing i was astonished by in your article, i knew the republican-controlled house had taken 30 or so votes to repeal the president's health care plan, which, of course, was pointless, but you say that the price to taxpayers for all that wasted time was no less than $48

million. >> so if you just look at the cost to taxpayers of keeping congress in business for two weeks, which is how long they wasted on this ideological chest thumping of trying to repeal obama care, well, that costs a lot of money. that's wasted money. it's $50 million which it's almost exactly the amount of money that they're not dedicating to fixing cracks in the capitol dome. they're letting their own house literally fall apart at the same time they're wasting taxpayer money on sort of ideological shows of impotence. i don't know what they prove by not passing 30 bills. >> i guess they say they prove they're fiscal conservatives. thank you for joining us. next, mitt romney's summer of love. don't run away, we're serious. stay with us. hmm, it says here that cheerios helps lower cholesterol as part of a heart healthy diet. that's true.

...but you still have to go to the gym. ♪ the one and only, cheerios ...but you still have to go to the gym. i'm bara ck o bama and i approve romney: "it's time to stand up to the cheaters" vo: tough on china? not mitt romney. when a flood of chinese tires threatened a thousand american jobs... it was president obama who stood up to china and protected american workers. mitt romney attacked obama's decision... said standing up to china was "bad for the nation and our workers." how can mitt romney take on the cheaters... when he's taking their side? his morning starts with arthritis pain. and two pills. afternoon's overhaul starts with more pain. more pills.

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"time" magazine is

publishing for the first time this picture of mitt romney from 1968. it was an attempt to impress his then girlfriend, ann, during a period of separation. and it's clearly an attempt to inject some personality into mr. romney's campaign. but it's also a reminder that while many of his generation were dying in vietnam in 1968, mitt was busy drawing pictures in the sand from the safety of france. yes, france. that's a pretty long way from the tet offensive. joining us with dnc communications director brad woodhouse. mr. romney appeared before veterans in virginia today just a short distance from where you are. >> right. >> by the sound of it, he's ready to charge bayonet first in any conflict if the president doesn't resolve every international problem currently on our plates. how do you agres mr. romney's more recent appetite for military conflict? >> look, i think the most appalling thing here, martin, is that mitt romney has shown over and over and over again that he

has no concept of what it is to be commander in chief, and he's not prepared to be commander in chief. he does -- >> what are you talking about? he wants to get into iran. he wants us to go into syria. he wants us to go across -- i mean, all kinds of territories. >> that's exactly right. i mean -- >> what's wrong with that? >> well, look, you know -- look what we got into in the last decade. he wants to play iraq all over again. he thinks we should put troops back in there, and that secret video he lamented the fact that we don't still have 20,000 troops in iraq. i mean, look, i think one thing this president -- the american people can be confident of is this president understands how to deal with foreign policy and how to keep america safe. he's taken terrorists off the battlefield, including osama bin laden. he's ended the war in iraq and strengthened our relationships around the world. mitt romney would go back to the cowboy diplomacy that got us into many of the problems the

president faced when he came into offense. >> i want to play you poart of mr. romney's speech. take a listen. >> egypt now with the muslim brotherhood president, pakistan high highly tu mu tu with us. >> pakistan, highly tumultuous. >> sounds like he didn't get far into his briefing on pakistan. i mean, of course, pakistan, afghanistan, that area of the world, you know, is an area that the president has focused on. he's taken a number of terrorists off the battlefield. >> tumultuous? it's going to be tumultuous tonight at the ravens game against the cleveland browns. that's tumultuous. pakistan is tumultuous? >> mitt romney just about every time he appears in public he shows how ill prepared he is to be president or commander in

chief. we saw last week and continue to see how he has no concept of standing foup are the middle class and clearly doesn't understand what it means to be commander in chief. you can't just go around, you know, saying that you're going to go to war with everybody. being commander in chief is hard. it requires work, and it also requires you don't telegraph everything you're going to do just for the purposes of playing politics. >> brad woodhouse, issuing some helpful advice there to mitt romney. thank you, sir. >> thank you, martin. >> we'll be right back to "clear the air." [ female announcer ] ordinary lotions aren't made to treat eczema, so it can feel like you're using nothing at all. but neosporin® eczema essentials™ is different. its multi-action formula restores visibly healthier skin in 3 days. neosporin® eczema essentials™.

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affect seniors today and in the future? find out with the aarp voters' guide at earnedasay.org droid does. and does it launch apps by voice while learning your voice ? launch cab4me. droid does. keep left at the fork. does it do turn-by-turn navigation ? droid does. with verizon, america's largest 4g lte network, and motorola, droid does. get $100 off select motorola 4g lte smartphones like the droid razr. it's time now to "clear the air." and up until now former president george w. bush has managed to stay out of the spotlight much to the relief of mitt romney. even when his wife, laura, agreed to host a lavish fund-raiser for mr. romney at their home in dallas, mr. bush made sure he was nowhere to be

seen. but just to be clear, bush 43 has expressed some support for mr. romney, sort of. >> interested in politics, i'm a supporter of mitt romney, hope he does well, but, you know, he can do well without me. >> president bush clearly understands that most republicans don't want to recall his period in the white house. the massive tax cuts that threw away a budget surplus, two wars that were neither budgeted for nor easily executed, and a mortgage mess that was the direct result of minimal egg lation and maximum exploitation. that's why we were a little surprised to learn that george b. bush has accepted an invitation to be the keynote speaker at a forthcoming investors conference will will take place on the cayman islands. yes, even as mr. bush avoids romney the man, he's getting closer to some of mr. romney's offshore money. the cayman alternative investment summit is described in a media kit as the place to

mingle with the offshore investment industry's power brokers. the meet up takes place at the ritz-carlton. the hotel just confirmed to us $4,400 registration fee, flights and accommodation not included. now, this is pretty bad timing. after a video emerged of mr. romney's running mate, paul ryan, actually making a direct attack on those who hide their money on the cayman islands. >> so then rather than having ireland and the cayman islands be the haven for capital formation, the place you hide your money, why don't we make it america? why don't we make it here in this country? >> well said. yet, there's a bigger problem for mr. romney because president bush is due to deliver his communique on cash from the caymans just four days before the presidential election. but, look, george bush may actually be doing mr. romney a favor because if the nation decides that he's not fit to be president, at least we'll all

know where to go for advice on offshore investments. thank you so much for watching. chris matthews and "hardball" is next. romney losing his bearings. let's play "hardball." good evening. i'm chris matthews in washington. let me start with this. why do we have such long campaigns for president? because it's a tryout a chance to not just kick the tires, not just to look under the hood, but to actually take the car out for a drive. over the past several weeks this country has experienced what it's like being in a car with mitt romney. we've felt the swerves, the sudden shifts, the abrupt stops and reverses, the reckless changes of lanes, the slipping and the sliding. there's more road ahead, of course, including three debates, but e